The Insidious and Resilient Narratives of Domestication: Pitfalls to Watch for in Autonomous Learning Zones

A discussion with Layla AbdelRahim

7:00pm - 9:30pmSunday October 13 2013

What better weekend than 'Thanksgiving' to Join Layla AbdelRahim on her book tour for 'Wild Children-Domesticated Dreams', as she talks about colonization, domestication, and the challenge of not reproducing these mechanisms as we strive towards de-schooling.

Not only has the hierarchical project of domestication and civilization existed for the past ten thousand years, it has been expanding globally, engulfing more and more territories and bringing the world to a state nearing the brink of collapse of biodiversity and self-sustainability. This colonizing project has not been accepted passively. It has met strong ideological, epistemological, socio-economic, and physical resistance on both individual and social levels. Nonetheless, civilization has reached an epidemic level largely owing to its misconstruction of “knowledge” about human nature and the world. In her research, Layla AbdelRahim applies concepts from biology, anthropology, ethology, and sociology to examine the mechanisms by which socio-cultural narratives and material cultures reproduce themselves through domesticated bodies, minds, and desires. In this workshop, Layla will identify these mechanisms of perpetuating domesticated “unknowledge” and will engage a discussion on resistance to its narrative.

Unfortunately, The Thistle is still struggling to find a space that is physically accessible to everyone. It is currently located at the top of a flight of stairs.